More Pix from 4th Ave

I had so much fun staying for the week at B&B's place.  Thank you for having me over!  Below is the whole family: Alice (on the arm of the sofa), Cordelia on the stairs, Betsy, Brett, Rayen Ellie, and Ethan. 

  Below is Ellie's first bath at home.  Wow, everything is new.

 Worried face (and fuzz-head).

Ethan is quite careful of his little sister.  Below, he rests with Ellie and his Snoopy toy from Uncle Jamison.

On the last day I was there, we made it out to the neighborhood park.

Ethan likes the swing and the slide.

 Oooh, cold hands.  We forgot to bring gloves.

 And I can't resist one last photo of baby Ellie doing a silly face.  She is her own little person.  Definitely blond, but she looks a lot like Betsy to me.

Again, thanks to B&B for asking me to come for the birth and a few days afterward.  It's hard to go back to my regular life now.  I'm glad you live only a 50-minute drive away.

Ethan and Ellie

I get to stay with Ethan and Ellie, and it's been fun to play with them and get to know them better.  Ethan likes me to sing songs to him before he goes to sleep, and although we watched "Cars" two times in two days, he also likes to play and talk.  A lot.  Below, with his daddy, doing their camera faces: 

 I had to include this picture of Ethan on the drums because he looks so much like Dave just before he turned two:

 Rooster-tail Ethan:

Camera face!

John brought dinner yesterday (which we just finished for today's lunch).  Here he sits with Ellie, while we all watch Ethan.

Ellie sleeps, which is very good.  But I know she's up plenty of times in the night.  She and Betsy are working on the timing and amount of feeding--a process involving ice packs, hot compresses, and pumping.

She woke up!

A very pretty little girl.  She reminds me of Betsy when she was tiny.

Advent of Rayen Elizabeth

Amy and I left Provo at 4:30 pm (16:30), and Amy stayed back with Ethan while Betsy, Brett, and I drove up to the hospital.  Right after we got there it was snowing outside.  We were in the same room where Ethan was born. No drama as there was with Ethan--no gas leaks and threatened evacuation.  Things were pretty slow for awhile.

Things were pretty slow for a long while.  

Brett went home for a nap.  By early morning, things were heating up again.  This (below) is not Betsy's natural resting smile:

At 6:16 we texted Brett to come back.  And hurry.

Taking a tiny break before the final lap:

Dr. Bennett, who made it there even after Brett:

Rayen Elizabeth, born 6:55 a.m. Feb 17, 2011.  Weight 9 lbs 1 oz, height 21 inches.  Blond, curly hair (but the curly probably won't last, as both parents and Ethan have straight hair).  At 9 lbs she is all filled out and cute as a button.  Her skin is perfectly translucent, and it was so interesting to see her change color when she was born and as she cried, from blue to purple to white to red.  Oxygenated blood! She seems to me, at home now as the grandma downstairs, to sleep quite a lot.  She had no difficulty learning to latch on--I suppose some of that had to do with being Betsy's second.

 Hello Ellie!  Welcome to the world. 

Daddy Brett caught her on the way out, and snipped the cord, and took her for her first check-over, and helped with her bath.

 The new room was nice--in the new hospital wing, with a beautiful view.  The best view was of the ladies:

Ethan came to visit.  Of everyone involved, he will probably have the hardest adjustment.

Thank you to Brett and Betsy for letting me be there.  I am honored.  I love you all.

End of October...

...my favorite time in the fall. With the cooler weather, everything keeps blooming, like the honeysuckle (above), and the leaves change and drop, with more color everywhere. John and Chris and I planted spring bulbs in the swing garden (below)--red tulips and yellow daffodils.

John finished the grape juice, and now the grape leaves turn yellow.

(Another gratuitous photo of the water garden, because I love it so much).

Then one day we wake up and snow is on the mountains like a visitation from God:

and all our places are transformed.



But don't worry. It melts off by afternoon, and we're back to autumn again:

Claudio lives outside full-time now. John is working on a cathouse for him. He has a heating pad to sleep on.

I made Blood and Bones for Halloween (tomato soup with bread sticks),

and John ate his when we went to SLC to trick or treat with the babes. He was not supposed to put goldfish in the blood though--ruins the effect.

Nicolle made Johnathan an incredible matador outfit.

Here we are--Colette as a flamenco dancer, Nicolle as a gypsy, and me as my natural self.

John was a miner (not the Chilean kind), and the horse-head guy (by Rob) is sort of a cross between a unicorn and The Godfather?

Rob welcomes trick or treaters at his house:

and we're off to gather the loot. Johnathan let me know that the witch below was not real.

We had fun visiting Colette's kindergarten teacher, Miss Tammy, just around the corner.

Ethan was sick with an ear infection, so they didn't go out. We went to visit instead.


When we got back home, several sleepy looking teenagers were watching "The Man Who Knew Too Much" on our VCR (our DVD player seems to have bitten the dust).

Then Sunday afternoon, John and I drove down to The Farm to see Damien and Kelli's new baby Liam.

As a bonus, Tena was there! She didn't tell anyone she was coming, but drove up from California Saturday and rang the doorbell trick or treating. Grandma twice now!


For your viewing pleasure, a Bullfight: